Yahoo And Facebook Finally Make Nice After Months Of Patent Lawsuits

Via AllThingsD: Back in March, Yahoo filed a patent infringement case against Facebook that claimed the social network's entire model was based on Yahoo-patented technology, which encompassed everything from ad methods to privacy settings to messaging. For the alleged injustice, Yahoo wanted Facebook to stop operating using said patents, which would have put a stopper on every major Facebook feature from News Feed to its advertising methods. In response, Facebook sued Yahoo right back a couple of weeks later, citing similar infringements on its own patents.

But in the spirit of playing nice in Silicon Valley, the companies have reportedly made peace today by agreeing to cross-license their relevant patents, meaning both Facebook and Yahoo have effectively agreed to stop suing each other in the future. To that effect, the two companies will also expand their existing partnership through ventures such as joint ad sales. A major like for Facebook: It won't be required to fork over any cash to Yahoo.